Spike Lee made such a difference in terms of black filmmakers, the subtleties - those authors, those writers who write from love, and those who write from that lofty position of superiority.I felt he took aspects of the black experience in America and held it up for us to see. He tried to put it in perspective. He did put it in perspective in his unique way.

My dream was I was going to be an actor. Racism occurred to me. It dawned on me that I would not be an actor. It occurred to me that I was not white. It occurred to me that being what they call colored, being a Negro, was some kind of a disadvantage.

Revolutionaries don't get job security. They compete with rats for cheese and with strays for shelter--after the big bullets make feet out of their knees.

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, dignity.

That's what being young is all about. You have the courage and the daring to think that you can make a difference. You're not prone to measure your energies in time. You're not likely to live by equations.

You meet all kinds of people that help put life in perspective and turn the horror into some kind of lesson or avenue of awakening that lives with you all your days.

It takes a long time to really be married. One marries many times at many levels within that marriage. If you have more marriages than you have divorces within the marriage, you’re lucky and you stick it out.